Lead Found in Lipstick; 'Good Morning America' Report Finds Lead in in Lip Products
A common beauty tool may do more harm than good.
A consumer report done by "Good Morning America" found that many lipsticks and lip glosses being sold contain traces of lead.
The study found that after testing 22 different lipstick and lip gloss brands, 12 had lead in them. That is 55 percent of the tested samples
The testing was conducted by Underwriters Laboratories who used government methods of testing and identified that trace amounts of the harmful material are in the products that are used daily.
While this may worry many women, it's not the only troubled news. Apparently there is no federal limit for the amount of lead able to be left in cosmetics meaning there is nothing illegal being done by beauty product manufacturers.
"The industry creates its own standards and they have been abiding by them pretty regularly," Roy Lamothe, general manager at Underwriters Laboratories in North America, told the morning show.
The highest level detected by the lab ranged up to 3.22 parts per million.
Most states in the America and countries have their own limit that is set for lead allowed. California's limit is 5 parts per million, which is still higher than the lab results but too high for activists wanting it banned from the products.
The Food and Drug Administration allows small traces of lead that the organization doesn't believe to be harmful, but the issue is contended with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that states there is no safe level, especially for children.
Dr Halyna Breslawec, chief scientist for the Personal Care Products Council, brought up the issue of dangers lead poses to children: 'If you were serious about the public health aspects of lead poisoning you would not be looking at lipstick. You would be looking at locations where children live. Do they live near hazardous waste dumps - are they chewing lead-containing paint fragments?"
